


It's Just Sky

by this_too_shall_pass



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Familial Logince - Freeform, Gen, Have at it, I cried while writing this, and it aint even That Time its just sad, and sodoroses greek myths au bc i love it, i listened to all time low by jon bellion while writing this, icarus!roman, inspired by an animatic snippet on yt, whats this? you want angst?, wholeass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-03 20:20:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20458889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/this_too_shall_pass/pseuds/this_too_shall_pass
Summary: It’s warm.It’s warm, and Roman is free.He is seventeen, and he is free, and there is wind in his face and wings at his back and laughter in his ears as he swoops over the sea, waving hello to his reflection in the water.





	It's Just Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FiniteFrame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiniteFrame/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Sky Most Holy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18853594) by [SoDoRoses (FairyChess)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairyChess/pseuds/SoDoRoses). 

It’s warm. 

It’s warm, and Roman is free. 

He is seventeen, and he is free, and there is wind in his face and wings at his back and laughter in his ears as he swoops over the sea, waving hello to his reflection in the water. He’s been locked in a tower for all his life, his world limited to what he could see outside of his window, and now he’s here, and he can look up and see the sun, and it’s warm and if he squints he swears he can see Apollo in his chariot, but it’s so incredibly bright that he can’t know for sure, and if he’s being honest, he doesn’t care. He made it out, and the world is glowing with possibilities, and when he and Father reach land he is going to take every one of them by the hand and dance out into the world that Roman’s been holding his breath to see.

But first he has to make it to land. He flips onto his back, looking up at his father, and waves his hand to get his attention. “Hey Dad, how much longer until we reach land?” His father looks down at him.

“Roman, please come up a little bit higher. Remember what I said about the sea water and your wings.” Roman whines, scrunching his nose at his father, but does so, gliding upwards to his dad’s level. “Thank you. According to my maps, we should be spotting land in roughly thirty minutes.” 

Roman’s face lights up. Thirty minutes! Thirty minutes until he can feel soil on his feet and look at the world around him from the same level. Thirty minutes until his life starts. He’s so close he can taste it. He lets out a whoop and does a flip, no easy task with wax wings, but whatever, because he’s going home. Out into the world, where he belongs. He soars away from his father, going as fast as his wings of wax and feather and his body of flesh and bone will take him, his heart already set on a land he has never seen. He feels as if he is rising, as if for all his life he’s been tethered like a helium balloon to a stand at an abandoned carnival and now he’s been untied and everything stretches out around him for miles. He feels as though he’s been reaching up, grabbing for something, some light at the end of the tunnel, and now he can feel its heat in the palm of his hand. 

He stays like this, his thoughts swept up in a whirlwind of the kind of hope only someone who’s never seen the world can have, until something snaps him out of his reverie.

It’s land.

Roman wants to cry, to weep at the rocky outcropping in the distance. He did it. He made it, and he has a future waiting for him, one that he can make for himself, and maybe he’ll fall and maybe he’ll fly but he’ll be free, and that’s all that matters and-

a drop of wax hits his hand.

His head snaps down, and he realizes that he’s higher than he ever intended to be, and his father is hundreds of feet below him, screaming at Roman to get down, that his wings will melt, but Roman turns around and it’s too late, he can feel himself slowing and he can see feathers floating down into the ocean, and then. Then he starts falling.

The wind hits his back as the skeleton of his wings curls around him, and if he weren’t falling into the ocean he would think it poetic. A scream tears itself from his throat like a page out of a book. His hands reach out towards the sky, grasping for something, anything, to save him, to keep him out of the inky waters below, but it’s just sky.

A hand grips his. It’s his father, Logan, clutching onto him for dear life, still so high above the world. Roman stares at him, wide-eyed. Logan grits his teeth, and Roman sees tears forming in his eyes as he struggles to hold onto his son.

Roman looks back at the land, and quickly comes to a realization. His father has been stuck in a tower for years. He's not particularly strong.The island is at least fifteen minutes away with one person. Logan can’t make it with Roman in tow.

Roman knows exactly what his father has done, how desperately his father needs the future that the king snatched away. The world is something Logan has loved and lost, but Roman has never seen it at all. Roman’s life is yet unlived, but his father’s is a life that serves others, a life that brings joy and light to the world. His father created the wings, sacrificed so much to get them both out, but Roman looks down and realizes that his dreams are nothing, a teenage drop in the bucket of all his father has yet to give to the world. Something itches on his face, and he realizes he’s crying too, crying because he knows that only one of them can make it to that island. He closes his eyes, envisions the light at the end of the tunnel, the one he was so close to, the one he could feel, and he lets go of it.

And then he looks up, smiles at his father, and lets go for real.

As he falls, his tears fly off his face, and his wings fall off, and now it’s just Roman plummeting into the sea, Roman stripped of his dreams and his hopes and fears. He’s just Roman. He closes his eyes. He feels the air get heavier as he gets closer. He thinks about everything he’s ever wanted to do. Perform on a real stage, feel grass between his toes, make a friend. And he realizes.

He doesn’t want to die. Not yet. He flails his arms, but his father can’t get to him anymore. He opens his mouth, but his scream is swallowed by the ocean.

**Author's Note:**

> oops :'). 
> 
> comments> kudos
> 
> inspired by: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXNt8YK945c&t=31s


End file.
